Banon Resorts Manali

... paked tourists, so there was nothing interesting to talk about.
The guy at the Antrek Tours & Travel agency proved to be helpful - not only he booked me a place on a minibus to Leh departing tonight, he also had an interesting trek to propose. Some 5 days, $60 a day, all included. But for now I'm taking the bus, and then when I'll be back we'll see about the trek.


The guide was really interested in the ...

... as darkness fell around us it was decided that we should break for the night and continue early in the morning. after a rough dinner in this way station of a town we bedded down in one of the few guesthouses for a few hours sleep. all thoughts remained on what lay ahead. 366 km of himalayan mountain roads, and tanglang la, at 5328 m the second highest motorable mountain pass in the world...

... to arrange an after hours ride home. We drank some whiskey, and some beer, and some local rum, ate some "Mutton Faheetas" and partied with a man who had no legs. Then we walked the 6km home...again. Hooper, in true hooper fashion, drank too much and spent the entire hour and a half walk screaming at his speakers for not working..."****in' 'ell!"

The main reason for coming to Manali was to see the Mela festival, where the town is supposed to ...

... but also for Indians to take a break from the bustle of Mumbai and Bangalore etc. The main attraction seems to be as a jumping off point for doing larger scale treks into the mountains and adventure sports etc. And I was annoyed to discover that there were few other travelers here. I did get talking to an old hippie bloke called Geoff that came here in 63' to rock climb and has been here ever since, only leaving to do visa runs. We talked about India and south east ...

... of this may be avoidable because they were so cold and wet from the snow on the last section they just went for it over the bump, having a couple of falls but nothing serious. They were even heading back to Leh this year by were taking a 5 day detour, just to avoid that pass again. I met another guy who had he had tried yesterday but had to turn back half way, admittedly he had a passenger but also a 500cc Enfield meaning more torque and power ...

... safely at the take-off area, all the Koreans wanted a photo session with the giant from the North. Kind of funny posing next to real-life hobbits. I felt a bit like Gandalf just then. I know, I should cut down on Lord of the Rings metaphors. I was third in line. The first girl took off like a rocket, going almost straight up. I was expecting a bit of running and horizontal gliding, but she was halfway into orbit before I got my camera out. The ...

... When he said this, I was wondering who he was kidding. I had never heard of porters who don't carry any of their client's things. Soon, things seemed hunky dorey once again, as the porters carried a fair amount of our excessive belongings (we decided somehow to bring all our things to avoid a trip back to Kullu, which we quickly labeled a hole worth avoiding a second time). But all was not hunky dorey as we would soon find out.

... nam res ni naklonjeno, odkar smo zapustili Delhi nas na nasi poti vsak dan spremlja dez. Monsun nam ni izkazal nobene milosti. Sicer ni tako grozno, kot se morda slisi, kajti tole monsunsko vreme izgleda tako, da se malo ulije, potem pa se kaj kmalu lahko pokaze sonce. Vendar zaradi tako nestanovitnega vremene se nam ne zdi ravno pametno lesti v gore, kjer je v tem casu tudi precej plazov. V Rishikeshu smo imeli tudi eno zelo neprijetno izkusnjo z vremenom ...

... imagine that many steps took it's toll on our legs, some of us fared better than others though, I was the first to reach the Mandir while Soma came in last, no surprise there! We did 'Matha Tekh' and just chilled up there for a while (let our legs recover for a bit), there were some amazing views from up there and although I took pictures you really don't get the same feeling as being there, especially after climbing up all those steps!!! Needless to say the ...